SIDEWALKS AND SIDESTREETS: The potential lethality of pedestrianism

Saturday

Jun 14, 2014 at 11:22 PMJun 14, 2014 at 11:28 PM

By Philip Leo McCarron

I, like all of you, have led a full and interesting life. By that, I mean that we have all seen things we will not forget – mostly good things, I hope to say. And we have experienced them, too – our graduations, senior proms (with the Exactly Right partner), that time we got the hit that won the ballgame for the team. The once or twice we gave the perfect person the perfect gift on the perfect occasion at the perfect time. Stuff like that. Times when things went right.They don’t always do so, though. Go right, I mean.I’m not being specific, really; like most people, there are a lot of times when I just don’t really know what to think.And I’m not a pessimist. Not at all. Just a realist.A couple-few weeks ago, they had on the news a bunch of archeologists who were spouting forth that they’d found the biggest dinosaur that ever lived. It’s thigh-bone was over six feet long – longer than the tallest scientist on the dig – a guy who measured in at about six and a half feet tall. The news film showed him laying beside the massive bone. Fossil, I mean. He was smiling, the scientist was. The knobs of the bones were bigger – physically – than his head. But I think his Crest-white teeth were even bigger. This was one happy guy.Bully for him.But, I thought, how can they say such a thing? Again? Lord knows they’ve said it before. "The biggest dinosaur that ever lived." Then, days / months / years later, they find a bigger one. And then the newest one becomes the biggest, and the "biggest" ones that were discovered before the latest discovery are relegated to being "still really big," but no longer the "biggest." A let-down – not only for us, but for the memory of the extinct beast(s).Which leads me to my story this week.They say something killed off the dinosaurs, and I’m inclined to agree, based on logic. Aside from the Jurassic Park movies, when have you ever seen a dinosaur? I rest my case. But do you know what killed them? Even the biggest ones? I sure don’t. And neither does anyone else.But I know what almost ended me the other day, and I don’t need any archeologist to tell me what. It was a car – an SUV, actually.I was walking home from the library. I was crossing a street.I was wearing a backpack, and my newly-borrowed books were in it.I was walking in the center of town. A very busy center, I might add. Traffic-wise. Cars.I was in a crosswalk, and I heard the screech of tires, and I turned around, and an SUV was bearing down on me, its driver shouting obscenities to the driver of another car. He didn’t even know I was there.Then he saw me – I reached out my hand, and rested it on his vehicle’s hood when he finally stopped. A second later, I’d’ve been roadkill."Sorry," they guy said, and drove off.After I finally exhaled, I think I felt like the last, biggest, dinosaur.Only I was still alive.Philip Leo McCarron is a Stoughton resident. He can be contacted by e-mail at philmccarron@yahoo.com, and enjoys your comments. Write him.